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Step by Step Guide: How to Port a Number & Forward to an Auto Attendant Menu
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Step by Step Guide: How to Port a Number & Forward to an Auto Attendant Menu

Don’t let things spiral out of control with your phone number!

You’re only one person and answering every single call isn’t always the most effective method.

With an Auto Attendant Menu, your callers will be greeted with a recording to guide your callers in the right direction.

Something like:

Thanks for calling! Press 1 to speak with sales, press 2 to speak with customer support or stay on the line to leave us a voicemail.

You can enter a different contact phone number for each key on the keypad!

Your caller presses their desired option and is connected to your business.

Here are the steps on how to transfer a number to NumberBarn from another service provider and set up an Auto Attendant Menu.

What is porting?

Porting means transferring your phone number from one service provider to another. Let’s say your number is with Tomato Wireless. You will port your active number from Tomato Wireless to NumberBarn. The number will eventually no longer be with Tomato Wireless and you’ll no longer pay them for service. Instead, you’ll pay NumberBarn. This process takes anywhere from 3-10 business days.

Which plan includes an Auto Attendant Menu?

The NumberBarn Call Forwarding plan is the only plan that includes an Auto Attendant Menu. The Auto Attendant Menu will use minutes on your plan. Depending on your expected call volume, you can determine which plan will work best for you by taking this quiz:

Our call forwarding plans are broken down by minutes per number per month:

How to begin

NumberBarn start transfer porting screen

NumberBarn transfer number verification page

We check to make sure we can support the city and state of your number on our network. When you select the Check button, we do not check:

The items above are your responsibility to verify, as a phone number owner. If you’re not sure, you’ll want to check with your current service provider.

NumberBarn number eligible for porting confirmation page

calling with NumberBarn number

For those with a green checkmark, please continue to read ahead for the next steps:

NumberBarn select a plan page

enter carrier account information to port a number

Numberbarn Current account information screenshot

NumberBarn payment information checkout page

Numberbarn Review your order screenshot

What happens next: Authorize your Port Request

Congrats! You have successfully initiated your port request. Now, you must verify your number and authorize the port. This tells us that you are the rightful owner of the phone number and gives us permission to submit your port to your current provider for review. Here’s how to make that happen:

What happens next: Waiting for a status update

After you have authorized your number port, we send the port request to your current provider for review.

Configure your settings

During the time you are waiting for a status update, you can configure your number settings with the Auto Attendant Menu. We recommend the proactive step of doing this prior to your number porting.

Here’s how:

Required Menu Setup

Using the menu requires an outgoing message to be played when a caller dials your number. The menu will not function without it. Select Choose file to upload button to upload your custom file.

For sample script ideas, click here. For answers to more questions, hop over to our Knowledge Base.

We’re NumberBarn, we take phone numbers very seriously. But, we also like to have a little fun. To learn more about us, visit NumberBarn.com and follow us on FacebookInstagram and Twitter.

Jenny Dempsey was Social Media & Customer Experience Manager from 2017-2020, bringing her extensive telecom industry knowledge to help build NumberBarn’s content-base while cultivating a positive & happy customer experience.